When I said open, I really meant open. Both hardware and software. You'll note that even the case AutoCADs are on Charmed's web site. The idea is to provide a "Tin Lizzy" (David Ross's old term) approach to wearable computing. The Tin Lizzy was Henry Ford's model T automobile. It was adapted by farmers to pump water, or move grain, or do all sorts of things. The standardized, interchangeable, off-the-shelf parts were revolutionary in that they allowed the end consumer to fix, modify, and improve the design. The hacker kits Charmed sells will always be the bleeding edge. You get all the ports, power, and info you need to do whatever you want. It will also be the cheapest we can make it. What you don't get is a miniscule, shrink-wrapped package (if you want that, give me about $40 million and I'll put together the company to make it - its about the right time). However, you are expected to hack the system and contribute your knowledge, software, and expertise back to the community. The biggest advantage is that you don't have to spend 10k$ to cobble together your machine like I did. The prices really haven't changed in 10 years to put together a useable machine - just the machine has gotten much more powerful. If you try to do it from scratch, you can expect to spend $10k in the end, a lot of that is breakage and upgrading to make your system current and useable. Stupid things get you: heat, loose screws, shorting serial ports, power connectors not up to amperage spec, vaporware, incorrect board specs, all sorts of things. Joe at Charmed is always fighting these annoyances, but he has a crew of people who give him fast feedback on what needs changing and how to do it. Without a community of hackers using your design, it is really hard to get it stable. And as far as a user interface, that is what the research community is doing. Check out the papers from my group at Georgia Tech or MIT, U of Oregon, CMU, Billinghurt's stuff at U. Wash, etc. GVU tech report 02-17 at http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/research/techreports.html is our latest and shows just how hard it is to do this stuff right. I suspect its even worse than figuring out the WIMP interface for desktops the first time at SRI/Xerox/Apple. At this point in time, its hard to have wearables as a hobby - it is more like a lifestyle. Thad __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better http://health.yahoo.com -- Subscription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org Please, *PLEASE* don't subscribe through a forward/expander/false domain
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